United Liberty
Medicare
Ever Wonder Why Healthcare Is So Expensive?
Wed, 12/30/2009 - 12:58pm | posted by Brett Bittner
Note: I intended to merely comment on this chart when sharing it via my Posterous. During the 5 or so minutes I was commenting, it grew to be something more substantial, and at the urging of others, it has been cross-posted here.
Since the 1960s, the percentage of total healthcare cost paid directly by the end consumer, aka patient, has dropped drastically, but out of pocket costs have risen and the cost of healthcare has risen drastically over that same period.
What has happened between then and now? The intervention of government into the marketplace. Insurance regulations, government mandates about what MUST be covered, Medicare/caid, and inflation make costs skyrocket, but the opacity of the prices keeps patients from seeing what each visit, prescription, and procedure actually costs. With that opacity, there is no competitive pricing, because the prices paid by patients are merely co-pays and the withholding from their paycheck for employer-sponsored health plans, insurance companies, and government programs that pay negotiated rates. Without competition and price transparency, prices will continue to rise.
In addition, patients largest out of pocket expense is their insurance coverage, which does not fluctuate to accommodate the amount of healthcare services consumed. The patient knows they only pay $10-$50 for each office visit, but the overall costs of those visits can be thousands of dollars. The patient rarely, if ever, sees the actual cost… Usually only if their insurance claim is denied.
Practical Ideas for Health Care
Mon, 10/05/2009 - 11:31am | posted by Matt Wittlief
In my last post, I outlined my thoughts on a more ideal health care system. I recognize that these thoughts describe a system which is much different than what we have today. Justified criticism is often directed towards such ideas for being too ideological, theoretical, or impractical. So, I’d like to close my series on health care (for now) with some ideas which may be more practical. I do recognize that some of these ideas may be politically untenable at this time and also concede that true health care reform requires hours and hours of research beyond what I’m able to provide. Here is my six-point plan for reform.
1. Authorize and Promote the Establishment of Health Care Subscription Programs
As noted in my thoughts on a more ideal health care system, the idea of a health and wellness subscription service seems like a great idea. Such a service may not be technically illegal today (I have not researched this), but the regulatory system and network of insurance providers are not aligned with such a model. This is not fundamentally different than prepaid health care which is a more accurate description of today’s health “insurance” products. I would allow Medicare, Medicaid, and Medicare Advantage plans to use federal dollars towards such programs if the patient chooses to do so.
2. Provide Significant Tax Incentives for Private and Corporate Donations to Non-Profit Health Care Providers
You Want to Control Health Care? Prove You Can Handle the Responsibility
Mon, 06/29/2009 - 10:55am | posted by Chris Moody
Would you hand over your car keys to a stranger with a drinking problem who had a history of smashing his own cars into telephone poles?
Neither would I. Which is why I am puzzled as to why there is so much excitement over handing health care over to the federal government, thereby giving them responsibility over roughly 1/6th of the nation’s economy.
Before we hand over the keys, let’s go back to the scene of the accident. That accident, of course, is Medicare, a monopoly program that drove private insurers out of the market for the elderly population and is facing huge deficits. If a government takeover of the entire health care system would be so successful, why is Medicare so bent out of shape? Looks a lot like a broken telephone pole with red white and blue paint scraped all over it to me.
The editors of the Washington Examiner ask the same question:
Medicare’s $60 billion administrative costs
Mon, 10/26/2009 - 4:04pm | posted by Jason Pye
Last night, 60 Minutes did a story on fraud and administrative costs that costs taxpayers $60 billion each year, which is more than the private sector:
1/3 of US on welfare under ObamaCare
Sat, 10/17/2009 - 4:26pm | posted by Jason Pye
The Heritage Foundation shows that nearly a third of Americans will be on welfare under ObamaCare:
Lost in all of last weeks headlines on how the Senate Finance Committee (SFC) finally delivered a health care product that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) was willing to say would reduce the deficit, was how exactly they achieved it. At a price tag of $829 billion, the SFC ’framework’ will reduce the number of uninsured Americans by 29 million, moving the overall percentage of nonelderly Americans with health insurance from 83% in 2010 to 94% in 2019. But of those 29 million with new insurance coverage, almost half (14 million), will get their coverage through the welfare programs Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). That is equivalent to adding every resident of Ohio and Nevada to the welfare rolls.
In other words, for half of those Americans who are being promised health reform, they are going to be stunned to find themselves in a welfare office applying for Medicaid. Under the current baselines for Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), there will be 76 million individuals served by these programs for at least some part of the year in 2019. If the SFC proposal becomes law, the number on Medicaid/SCHIP will top 90 million. So why do Obamacare supporters want to put 90 million Americans on the welfare rolls? It is cheaper than providing them with real quality health care.
How do we save billions without spending a dime? Tort reform!
Sun, 10/11/2009 - 2:33pm | posted by Jason Pye
Over at Hot Air, Ed Morrissey points to a CBO report on showing that tort reform could reduce the budget defict $54 billion over ten years:
CBO now estimates that implementing a typical package of tort reform proposals nationwide would reduce total U.S. health care spending by about 0.5 percent (about $11 billion in 2009). That figure is the sum of a direct reduction in spending of 0.2 percent from lower medical liability premiums and an additional indirect reduction of 0.3 percent from slightly less utilization of health care services. (Those estimates take into account the fact that because many states have already implemented some of the changes in the package, a significant fraction of the potential cost savings has already been realized.)
Enacting a typical set of proposals would reduce federal budget deficits by roughly $54 billion over the next 10 years, according to estimates by CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee of Taxation. That figure includes savings of roughly $41 billion from Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and the Federal Employees Health Benefits program, as well as an increase in tax revenues of roughly $13 billion from a reduction in private health care costs that would lead to higher taxable wages.
What’s that? billions in savings without spending $820+ billion? Who’d a thunk it. Unfortunately, this is not on the table with the Obama Administration and Democrats in Congress. And as Morrissey points out from the, the 0.5% reduction from the lowering of premium for medical liability insurance and people using services less would also saving money, which comes to $110 billion (including the aforementioned $54 billion)
Republican Hypocrites Fighting Medicare Cuts
Mon, 09/28/2009 - 4:02pm | posted by Doug Mataconis
The so-called party of fiscal conservatism is fighting spending cuts in one of the most bloated social welfare programs in the Federal Budget:
After years of trying to cut Medicare spending, Republican lawmakers have emerged as champions of the program, accusing Democrats of trying to steal from the elderly to cover the cost of health reform.
It’s a lonely battle. The hospital associations, AARP and other powerful interest groups that usually howl over Medicare cuts have also switched sides. Last week, they stood silent as the Senate Finance Committee debated a plan to slice more than $400 billion over the next decade from Medicare, the revered federal insurance program for people over 65, and Medicaid, which also serves many seniors.
With the Finance Committee set to resume deliberations Tuesday, cuts to government health programs are expected to account for at least half the funding for its health-care reform package. A competing bill drafted by House leaders would cut spending even more sharply.
AARP and other groups say the cuts are small enough to be absorbed without affecting services, and many health policy analysts tend to agree. But the size of the cuts is less relevant than the widespread calculation that health-care providers and their most frequent patients have much to gain from President Obama’s overhaul of the nation’s health system.
RNC Chair backs Medicare, opposes cuts, guarantees massive tax increases
Wed, 08/26/2009 - 11:52am | posted by Jason Pye
So last night I finally had the chance to read RNC Chair Michael Steele’s editorial from the Washington Post. It has left me scratching my head. Republican rail on and on about government-run health care, but Steele believes that Medicare, a massive bureaucracy with $32 trillion in unfunded liabilities (that is more in expenditures than expected tax revenue, see page 16) that spends more per patient than private health insurance, is a program worth securing.
Interestingly, Steele says that Republicans reject the idea of cuts to benefits, leading to the conclusion that he supports tax increases to pay for future unfunded costs.
While you may disagree with me, Republicans have done nothing to deal with problem Medicare represents to our economy, other than expand it. Nearly six years ago, a Republican president and a Republican-controlled Congress passed a $9 trillion expansion of Medicare.
I’ve been wondering lately how serious Republicans were about actually doing what they say they believe. I have an answer.
Medicare spends more than private health care
Tue, 07/21/2009 - 11:34am | posted by Jason Pye
A new study from Jeffery Anderson at the Pacific Research Institute shows that government-run programs already in place, such as Medicare and Medicaid, spend more per patient than private health insurance:
Since 1970, Medicare and Medicaid’s combined per-patient costs have risen from $344 to $8,955, while the combined per-patient costs of all other US health care have risen from $364 to $7,119.Medicare and Medicaid used to cost $20 less per patient than other care. Now they cost $1,836 more. (And that’s even without the Medicare prescription-drug benefit.)
